Uniphar has agreed to certain undertakings pending a hearing in a dispute over an alleged breach of an agreement between the pharma giant and a pharmacy brokerage business, the High Court heard on Monday.
The undertakings remain in place pending a hearing of an injunction application against Uniphar plc and Uniphar Wholesale by brokerage firm, Thera Pharmaceuticals, which claims the alleged breach is part of an attempted Uniphar takeover and a breach of its dominant market position.
Dublin-based Thera is seeking orders preventing Uniphar from blocking its trading account and from disabling or otherwise altering an existing system for sending real time stock updates to it.
It says Uniphar has breached a brokerage agreement it has had with Thera since 2015. Uniphar has denied the claims.
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Thera, part of the Navi Group, provides infrastructure to the purchasing power of a large group of retail pharmacies for ordering supplies from wholesalers like Uniphar which, with United Drug, account for 87 per cent of sales in the State.
Thera says the consolidated group buying can negotiate discounts from suppliers like Uniphar. This means it can deliver to retail pharmacies significant savings and ordering efficiency compared to what they could achieve individually.
The application to bring proceedings was made on a one side only represented basis last week to Mr Justice Brian Cregan who granted Thera permission to do so and returned the case to Monday.
On Monday, Kelley Smith SC, for Uniphar, said the parties had agreed to undertakings pending determination of the injunction application and had also agreed a set of directions for the exchange of papers so that an early hearing of the matter could take place.
Mr Justice Cregan approved the directions for exchange of papers and said he would put the case to the end of the week for the list to fix dates to see if a June date proposed by Ms Smith could be accommodated.
